1897] PROPOSED ZOOLOGICAL PARK OF NEW YORK 87 
to make acquaintance with this subject. Five of the gardens visited, 
namely, those of London, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Hamburg and 
Berlin, are classed by Mr Hornaday as being of ‘first rank, and 
receive due praise for their success in various particulars. Warm 
thanks are also offered to the officials of these and the other 
gardens for the great help they have afforded to Mr Hornaday 
in his investigations. The principal criticism made upon these 
gardens by Mr Hornaday is that of want of space, many of them 
being so overcrowded with buildings and yards, that little attempt 
can be made to imitate the natural haunts of the creatures exhibited 
in them. 
In European gardens, Mr Hornaday truly observes, ‘the large 
game—animals, such as the various species of deer, elk, bison, 
buffaloes, etc., are kept in small pens, because ample park-space is 
not available. Living trees are never utilized as homes for arboreal 
mammals. Ledges of natural rock are entirely absent, but hills of 
artificial rock, and small masses of stone, are quite common. With 
the exception of the great ‘flying’ cages of London, Rotterdam and 
Paris, the homes provided for birds are always of the most conven- 
tional and artificial character. The ‘flying’ cages, however, just 
mentioned are so very large, and contain so much of nature in the 
form of living trees, shrubs, plants and water, that the birds within 
them seem to be as much at home as if they were really in a state 
of nature, in a leafy wilderness.” 
We shall see presently that in the proposed new garden in New 
York, it has been wisely arranged that much more ample space shall 
be provided than is to be found in the existing establishments in the 
Old World. 
Mr Hornaday also speaks of the attempts made in some of the 
European gardens to provide oriental buildings for oriental animals, 
and buildings of an elaborate architectural design. It is his 
opinion, and we quite agree with him, that conformity to a plain 
and uniform style of architecture is more desirable in such matters 
than a “succession of startling contrasts.” 
But although we have derived much instruction from Mr 
Hornaday’s Report, and from the appositeness of some of his remarks, 
it is time now to turn to what our enterprising American friends 
propose to do in order to found in New York a Zoological Garden, 
certainly better provided with space, and, if possible, better ordered 
in every other respect than those of Europe. In selecting for the site 
of the proposed new garden South Bronx Park, a tract of “261 acres of 
forest, meadow-land, and water,” in the northern environs of the 
city, in what is called the “annexed district,” the Executive Council 
appear to have made a wise choice. As will be seen by the bird’s-eye 
view of the surface of this piece of ground, taken from a relief model 
